Confidence!!

K09

I really want to be super confident!!

Burial

Confident in what? Your life? The choices you make? Approaching men/women? People are confident in different things. I'm confident in sport, but not in an exam...

MagicMarker

I'd like to be a millionaire.

Wibbs

OK lets rein it back in. OP more info would be useful.

bubonicus

Stop asking people, that you want to be confident then, And TELL them you ARE confident.

Brian_Uckfast

This thread has wasted 15 seconds of my life :mad:

tbh

then best make sure you know what you are selling 100%. And if it's crap, fix it.

RossFixxxed

More confident in what aspects of your life? Your own self worth? How bad is the problem? We need more detail to help out!

Wibbs

Brian_Uckfast wrote: »

This thread has wasted 15 seconds of my life :mad:

Well then don't take the time to post. Please read the charter about non helpful posting.

Stercus Accidit

Then you will be OP.

Give it time and take the pressure off yourself.

If you want it it will happen, but confidence is about being happy in yourself, nothing wrong with wanting more confidence, everyone does.

Terpsichore

Confidence is just an attitude. Just work on that.

K09

I want to be confident in general...when meeting people, talking to people, doing presentations, attending meetings...and so on.

I get anxious when meeting new people or having to go to parties, dinners, etc.
I want to come across as very confident.
I do not want to be seen as a shy, quiet person.
I want to be confident and look forward to giving presentations, meetings.
I want to be more outgoing.

And I want to have more self-belief. Be more confident and stop doubting my abilities.

Serafina_jah

K09 wrote: »

I want to be confident in general...when meeting people, talking to people, doing presentations, attending meetings...and so on.

I get anxious when meeting new people or having to go to parties, dinners, etc.
I want to come across as very confident.
I do not want to be seen as a shy, quiet person.
I want to be confident and look forward to giving presentations, meetings.
I want to be more outgoing.

And I want to have more self-belief. Be more confident and stop doubting my abilities.

I think we'd all like that KO9.

There are so many people who lack the confidence for Presentations and meetings, myself being one.

I think in order to gain confidence it takes time and a lot of work. Mantras help- little things you say to yourself everyday to make you feel more confident.
Wake up in the morning and tell yourself you're fantastic and confident.

So you're not confident, try and fake it, pretend you're an actor that has to play a confident role :P

I work in a health shop and loads of people come in to buy the Jan De Vries "confidence essence". It's a flower remedy, haven't tried it but it's supposed to be good.

There are lots of self help books on building confidence- try them.

There's a group called Toasters (i think thats what they're called) and they help you build confidence in public speaking.

Basically if you want to build confidence you really have to work on it. Best of luck

LegacyUser

There is a reason you experience so much anxiety in your daily life. It is becasue you have an image of yourself which you try to live up to. There are two inputs which affect this image of yourself. You and the outside world. When you experience feedback from the outside world which is not in alignment with your image you get bad feelings. So you are always reacting to the world to get the feedback you want to give you the good feeling of being in alignment with your self. This is a horrible situation because you can't control how the world interacts with you. So the solution your brain comes up with is to sit back and say little to minimise the chances of getting out of alignment feedback from the world. It's like when the teacher asks a question to the class, some kids who have a strong image as being clever won't put up their hand even if they are 99% sure of the answer. They are afraid of their image being devalidated. They need to be 100% sure to put up their hand.

This is great I hear you say, but how do I get confident?

Well first you have to shed any image you have of yourself. A man with no image of himself (ego) has no fear of external feedback from the world. He simply lives his life and expresses himself. He has pure self esteem and always has a baseline good feeling, he feels very liitle anxiety. Life is a celebration of himself. With ego even when your image is validated from external feedback you are always looking for more feedback, you are trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it. The validation from ego/self image is like eating McDonalds, it tastes good but you don't feel great afterwards. Self esteem is like eating a fillet steak from a fine restaurant. It tastes great and you feel great afterwards.

To eradicate your ego/ self image/ story of yourself I suggest reading " A New Earth " by Eckharte Toll. Hope this helps.

Burial

What the poster above was saying was toastmasters. This is a great way to improve your belief in yourself in public speaking.

K09 wrote: »

I get anxious when meeting new people or having to go to parties, dinners, etc.

First off, stop thinking what others think of you. Think of what you think of yourself. Have fun at dinners parties, etc. Most people think confidence = talking ability. That isn't true. You don't have to the life and soul of party, just know that once you have fun, and listen to others, you'll find you'll have more to talk about!

If your REALLY worried about meeting new people, just see what other say to you when they first meet you. Repeat what they do, or write down how a conversation will go with someone you don't know, or talk to random people at work on the street etc. If this isn't for you, try your hardest to never give one worded answers. Try to show an interest in the person your meeting for the first time.

K09 wrote: »

I want to come across as very confident.

Why?! Why do you want to make them believe something you don't believe yourself? As I said before being confident is something you must think you are, not what others think you are.

K09 wrote: »

I do not want to be seen as a shy, quiet person.

If you wish to talk more, start talking more. When your with your friends or work collegues see what they talk about and use what they talk about with others you see. Once you see that most conversations aren't all that interesting you'll see that anything, sport, college, a fly that annoyed you at work, anything. Noone cares what you talk about.

K09 wrote: »

I want to be confident and look forward to giving presentations, meetings.
I want to be more outgoing.

If you want to enjoy presentations, imagine your doing it for yourself. I thought I had the worst presentational skills ever, but my class said I was very good! The only thing you need is the belief that you'll be ok. Everyone is nervous.

K09 wrote: »

And I want to have more self-belief. Be more confident and stop doubting my abilities.

Then stop doubting your abilities. Trust them. If you don't trust them, perfect them, or keep doing things so you'll know that you can trust your own ability. If you don't succeed, it's not the end of the world either. It's a learning experience so the same mistake won't be repeated again.

LegacyUser

A also recommend going to www.alexattitude.com. He has written some amazing articles which will help. Some of the articles there are just stories from his life, you can ignore those ones.

af_thefragile

Confidence comes from self esteem which comes from self belief.

I herd one wise guy once say building your self esteem is like moving through different belts in karate or any marshall art. Your aim always is to obtain black belt but to get there you've gotta move through different belts while you get better slowly until eventually you can become capable of obtaining the black belt.

Life is like that too. You start off at white belt. Then you challenge yourself to do things you thought you weren't able to do before. With the completion of each challenge in your life, you move up a belt. And as you move up a belt your challenges in life keeps getting bigger and bigger. But if you stick with it, believe in yourself and go for it, you should soon be able to achieve the black belt in life.

So what you should do now is first figure out which belt you're at in your life. You're asking this question so i presume you're somewhere at the lower end. Thats not a problem, everyone starts from white belt in life. Now once you've figured out which belt you're at challenge yourself with things you think you can't possibly do. It can be something very simple like getting out of bed early and working out in the morning or going to the gym. Once you manage to do that, you can acknowledge it, pat yourself on your back, realise that task is no longer a challenge for you, give yourself a new belt and then find yourself a new challenge in life. Like maybe finding a girlfriend if you're single or something. And as you keep moving through these belts in life, you'll feel your confidence grow with every new belt you give yourself. Don't cheat, be honest to yourself. If you cheat it won't work. And remember, don't see anything worse than it is. First see things in your life the way they are (not worse than they are) and then see them better than they are. Create the image in your mind about it the way you want it to be and then make it happen in reality.

To sum it up, remember confidence comes from self esteem and not ego. Ego will only destroy you mostly. Ego is when you've got no reason to back up the way you feel highly about yourself. That won't give you anything. Self esteem is when you truly feel good, confident and highly about yourself cuz you know you have achieved many things in life that you once could only dream of.

Think about this for a while, see if it makes any sense to you and then work on it!

LegacyUser

I think the poster above has made alot of great points. I agree it's very important to have goals in life in order lead a fulfilling life, however I don't think anyone should need a reason to be confident, I think we have been socially conditioned to believe we need reasons to be confident such as achievements, money, looks, women of whatever.

Have you ever seen most five year olds? They don't logically have a particular reason to be confident, they just are because it is are default state to act through our own intentions.
They say what they want and go after what they want, they have no anxiety over what someone thinks of them. The reason being is they haven't built an ego of who they are.
The ego is a logical construct of who you think you are, it's made of memories of your life, stories, achievements, talents and so on. The ego is not who you are. You are the life in your body, you are the awareness behind your thoughts. Who says that you should need a logical reason to say or do what you want and express your authentic self.

Afterall confidence basically means you feel free to express your authentic self without anxiety or worry of what other people might think. A confident person with no ego doesn't have a noisy mind like people with ego. They are calm and relaxed.

Wibbs

Good stuff from af_thefragile and unregistered if its the same person as before. I would disagree slightly with unregistered though. That's a concept that has gained some currency lately, especially in the "how to be men" genre(very will to power american self help guff). The ego is at fault etc. It's like the hippy idea of "live in the now maaaaan". Yea great there ted, but it doesn't work as a practical way to live or grow.

IMHO I think we dont need to go to extremes. Personally the idea of people as egoless as 5 year olds is not company I want to keep. They're like that not because of confidence, they're like that because they're children. Plus they do have egos. Very emotionally fragile ones in fact.

Again IMHO there should be brakes on the ego and confidence. That's what healthy growth to adulthood is mostly about. Fitting into an adult social dynamic. I know fight the powah, emos, and types who think fight club is a life manual just looove that idea, but it's the reality. We all go through that phase and that phase is part an parcel of a healthy adolescence. It also has good lessons we should take into adult life but most don't.

Because we do get conflicting influences from society most end up quite unhealthy because of that to differing degrees. That also means the adult social dynamic is quite skewed in many ways too, so that makes engaging it difficult.

That doesn't mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater either. Balance is everything. Yes we are products of our "memories of your life, stories, achievements, talents and so on", but that is a hell of a lot of who we are, bad and good. It should be too.

Accept who you are. Discover and acknowledge your good points and polish them if you can. Discover and acknowledge where you act, think and feel like a eejit and work on them too. We all have both going on. Try to build more good than bad. Lose guilt about things in the past. It's pointless. Get out more. Meet more people. take little steps and first and be aware you will get knocked back. Think of them as growing pains. Know yourself. If you don't start learning. Examine situations where you could have done better and visualise how you would do better should those situations arise again. Don't think too much though. That way lies self centeredness and over introspection(and black wallpaper). Dodgy path, unless you've the mind for it. How to spot the diff? If you're thinking more than you're doing for a month, then start to do more.

LegacyUser

Response to Wibbs above:

I think alot of people misinterpret the " living in now " idea from " The power of now". Living in the now isn't about not thinking about the future or planning things; it's not about being like some monk in the mountains meditating. It's about not being constantly preoccupied with what happened in the past or what might happen in the future. It doesn't mean you can't think, what it's about is controlling your mind instead of your mind controlling you.

You can set a goal for yourself in the future which you want to achieve which may have many steps along the way, but what you focus on at any moment is the step you are on right now.

You often see people having aggressive arguments over difference of opinion, wars are even started over difference of opinion. Why is this? Each party in the argument has identified with their opinion, they think the opinion makes up who they are. So when someone attacks their opinion they feel as if they personally are being attacked so they become defensive.

Bottom line is, I recommend everyone reads the "Power of Now". It changed my life, everything I do is more enjoyable and richer.

K09

Thanks for the help!!!
I bought a book - 'Overcoming Social Anxiety and Shyness' by Gillian Butler.
It suggests 4 main methods:
1/ Changing thinking patterns
2/ Doing things differently - face difficulties rather than avoid them
3/ Reduce Self Consciousness
4/ Build Self Confidence

Do you think I should spend a few weeks just focusing on one individual method?? And then go onto the next method?
Or should I do them all together?

Or has anyone better suggestions?

Thanks again. Very grateful for the help.

RossFixxxed

OP: You're further towards it than you think! The fact that you're asking for all this advice and looking for a way yourself is a massive step and a difficult one.

Don't write off the 'Nowness/mindfulness' thing just be careful of anything that seems to written by a hippy or promise magical powers and you'll be good on that front. I would have been cynic number 1 on that but it's made a HUGE difference to me!

Good luck!
R

evercloserunion

K09 wrote: »

I want to be confident in general...when meeting people, talking to people, doing presentations, attending meetings...and so on.

I get anxious when meeting new people or having to go to parties, dinners, etc.
I want to come across as very confident.
I do not want to be seen as a shy, quiet person.
I want to be confident and look forward to giving presentations, meetings.
I want to be more outgoing.

And I want to have more self-belief. Be more confident and stop doubting my abilities.

I think the best way to come across as confident is to accept that there is nothing wrong with being a quiet, shy person. Don't try to feign confidence; be yourself, and if people don't like that they can go jump. Being quiet and reserved can be seen as a quality in a person.

Once you accept this, I think you'll find yourself naturally becoming more confident. All you have to do is be comfortable with yourself, not change yourself.

K09

I have been trying to change my thinkin patterns. I have been noticing a lot that I have all these thoughts in my head...that people are listening to my conversation on the phone or are watching me walk into a room.
I am also trying to second guess what people are thinking and this makes me feel even more self conscious.

My issue now is, even though I can spot when I do this, how do I stop it and change my way of thinking?

Thanks!!

ogriofa

K09 wrote: »

I have been trying to change my thinkin patterns. I have been noticing a lot that I have all these thoughts in my head...that people are listening to my conversation on the phone or are watching me walk into a room.
I am also trying to second guess what people are thinking and this makes me feel even more self conscious.

My issue now is, even though I can spot when I do this, how do I stop it and change my way of thinking?

Thanks!!

God, that's gas!
I'll bet for every time you're walking into a room all self concious, there's at least one person in the room going "god, don't ask me a question, I haven't a clue what I'm doing" and someone else is thinking "god, do i smell?".

I have a couple of pals that are really confident. You get talking to them in the pub, and before you know it, they're asking your advice on something. If you have someone super confident in your office you can be sure they're worried about some aspect of their lives/something in work that they could improve on.
When you're self concious, you're staring at yourself. Look around, people might look, but they're not staring. People are too pre occupied with them selves.
When someone walks into the room what do you do? You look up to see who it is, if it's not someone you need to talk to, you go back to what you were doing.

I'm probably one of those confident guys you're looking at every day - I'm not.

Take little risks every now and again, when you feel comfortable. (running for the bus was a big one for me)

And when you're building your confidence to a level that you'd like... be yourself Everybody hates an arrogant pri@k.

Keep it up

lillybegood

I always found the public speaking side of things hard - I'm ok in one-to-one social situations or small groups, but in larger groups I tend to fade into the background - and having to stand up in college and give a presentation, well that just freaked me out..

And I KNOW all the jargon and the "think yourself confident" stuff.. but no matter how much you try and tell yourself to pull it together it doesn't always work...

I usually blush if I have to get up in front of people - that or my voice comes out all weird - but the main thing that bothers me is that I'm worried about LOOKING unconfident. I don't want to look like a rabbit caught in the headlights. That's the most mortifying thing.

It doesn't seem to be a problem for some people... I know the perception that everyone else in the world is superconfident is inaccurate, but if I could at least get to that stage where I was fooling everyone else I would be happy :P And then maybe work on TRUE confidence

There's a free seminar on at the weekend, I'm going with a friend (I don't know where you're based), but it's in the Gresham in dublin and one of the main areas is about communication - which I'm guessing includes public speaking and relationships and stuff. Anyway you can get free tickets here http://www.succeed.ie/vip/promo/

I've never been to a seminar like this before, I was promised there would be no happy clapping hi-5ing group hugs or anything mortifying like that....

I used to refuse to make a phone call if there was someone who might be listening, but I seem to have mostly gotten over that one.

But something else that does bother me is having my photo taken. It's almost like a phobia. I just freeze and look terrified. :P

Any thoughts?

Dragan

There are two ways to develop confidence. One is real confidence and one is false confidence that will falter whenever anyone with actual ability in what you claim confidence in shines a light on you.

1) Be confident. This is false confidence. You can't "Be" confident, plain and simple.
2) Develop confidence. This is REAL confidence. You need to develop it in the area's where you KNOW you have an ability, a strength.

Go back in time from today, to the day i was born and i get less and less confident as you go. I had to build it up, find things i was able to do, and measure, to show myself that i was good at them and little voices in my head couldn't make me doubt myself.

It took some time, but this confidence was developed in reality, around things that i was good at. If i couldn't develop confidence in an area then it simply meant i wasn't good at it, so needed to put the work in to develop that area...the confidence came later, after i had proven my ability to myself.

This, to me, is real world, well placed confidence.

The simple fact of that matter is that confidence isn't worth **** if you can't back it up. You need to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

So , what i am telling you is you need to answer me one question.

What are you best at? And how good at it are you?

Think long and hard and you are probably a bit more confident than you think you are.

St Bill

K09 wrote: »

I am also trying to second guess what people are thinking and this makes me feel even more self conscious.

My issue now is, even though I can spot when I do this, how do I stop it and change my way of thinking?

Op, now that you've noticed this, it'll take a lot of self-discipline to not second guess what people are thinking. But you've taken the first step, how you do the rest isn't really that important. I used to second guess what people were thinking all the time, whole scenarios would be worked out (almost like a stage production with extras thrown in for good measure ). When I first noticed I was doing this, it took me a while to break the habit (and that's all it is, a habit) but I eventually did. It'll be a weight off your shoulders when you finally do it. Good luck

abi2007

I think you build confidence by stepping outside your comfort zone, keep trying new things and the more you do it and realise there is nothing to be scared ( prob not the best word) of the more confident you'd get.

things that used to freak me out when younger were:

buying drink in the off licence

asking someone for directions

wearing skirts

now doing the above examples I do without even thinking about it cause I've done them so much... works the same when chatting people up too. you get more confident each time

K09

Does any one think this would be worth getting in contact...

http://www.skyhighconfidence.com/Sky_High_Confidence.htm

or this...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Total-Confidence-Lorraine-Ireland/dp/0954971930/ref=pd_sim_b_46

sunnyside

af_thefragile wrote: »

Life is like that too. You start off at white belt. Then you challenge yourself to do things you thought you weren't able to do before. With the completion of each challenge in your life, you move up a belt. And as you move up a belt your challenges in life keeps getting bigger and bigger. But if you stick with it, believe in yourself and go for it, you should soon be able to achieve the black belt in life.
!

Interesting post but I feel the opposite. I was much more confident when I was younger, you know when you are 19 and think you are invincible and can do anything. Then life experience includes a few knocks and the confidence you had when you were younger is replaced with insecurity about everything.

lillybegood

Yeah it's not as simple as: each successive victory adds to your stockpile of confidence.

Things can erode confidence too. Sometimes we fail.

I find often just when I feel at my most invincible and like I can do anything, something unexpected will happen and I realise all my confidence is paper thin and extremely fragile.

Could it be that confidence is to do with a lack of fear of failure? That only when we accept failure as a possibility, and are ok with that, and with ourselves - that we can be free to be truly confident and succeed?

Is true confidence linked to an entrepreneurial lack of attachment to the results of our actions?

Or is it brash, unconsidered foolishness that we overthinkers and overanalysers will never be able to achieve?

I guess if you think confident people are people who dont' think then you'll naturally protect yourself from being confident (if you define your identity by your protective thinking).

perspectives and overthinking.

I'm definitely guilty of that last one :P

Liam Byrne

K09 wrote: »

I have been noticing a lot that I have all these thoughts in my head...that people are listening to my conversation on the phone or are watching me walk into a room.

If someone "full of themselves" said the above, we'd probably say "Yeah, right - like you're THAT important :rolleyes:".

And in an odd way, that put-down for people who are full of crap can be made to fit to help you, OP.

What have those people got going on in THEIR heads ? Their job or mortgage, a date that night, a rake of errands to run before trying to catch a bus ? Why would your phone conversation or entry into the room be more important than all that ?

Other people might even have worries that NO-ONE would watch or notice them walking into a room.....we're all different.

But the overall scenario still applies; so - and I don't mean this as a put-down, just as a way to bring you down to earth and stop you worrying - those strangers have their own lives and worries, and you're probably a relatively minor factor in their own, personal, bigger scheme of things. It might be different if it's someone a boyfriend, or a potential boyfriend, where you're HOPING they'd notice you, but for strangers, they've enough going on and you shouldn't worry.

I really hope I haven't gone too far in this and make you come back on here saying "no-one notices me" in a week's time, but I do hope the above helps to bring reality and reason into the equation. Like all things in life, it's about balance.

Best of luck!

LegacyUser

K09 wrote: »

Does any one think this would be worth getting in contact...

http://www.skyhighconfidence.com/Sky_High_Confidence.htm

or this...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Total-Confidence-Lorraine-Ireland/dp/0954971930/ref=pd_sim_b_46

Not convinced that these work. How do we really know what they can do? Instant miracle?? I don't think so.

But maybe other people have experience with something similar and read books or visited hypnotists.
Anyone here??